They said they determined a conviction wouldn't have added any more prison time than he's already facing under a guilty verdict last month.

The disgraced Democratic powerbroker had been set to stand trial in July on charges he billed the city of Newark for $58,000 in personal expenses, including lavish vacations with more than a half-dozen female companions.

Prosecutors alleged he stuck taxpayers with the tab for everything from movie tickets to fast-food meals and nine-day cruises, but he denied the charges and planned to fight them at trial.

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerFormer Newark Mayor Sharpe James waves good-bye to a security officer as he walks out of the federal courthouse in Newark this morning.

U.S. District Judge William Martini dismissed that indictment today at the request of Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Germano. Under an agreement between James and prosecutors, the former mayor pledged not to seek a postponement of his July 29 sentencing on the separate corruption charges.

Last month, a jury found James guilty of improperly steering cheap, city-owned land to Tamika Riley, his one-time mistress, so she could quickly flip the properties and earned more than $600,000 in profits. Riley was also convicted and will be sentenced along with James.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie's office had initially estimated that James faced 57 to 71 months in prison for that conviction. But they said today that estimate was conservative and based on fraud statutes alone.

"We believe that justice was well served on the day the jury convicted the former mayor on all of the corruption charges against him and, as a consequence, by the significant prison term that he likely faces," Christie said in a statement.

After further review, they said, the public corruption statutes under which James was convicted leave him exposed to a prison term of between 10 and 15 years.

Defense attorneys for James and Riley have vowed to appeal those convictions. In dismissing the credit-card counts, prosecutors reserve the right to revive the case should the convictions in the land-fraud case be overturned by Martini or an appeals court.

James was indicted last summer on both the credit-card and land-fraud charges. But the judge split the 33-count indictment into two, saying the land-fraud allegations were the heart of case and that he didn't want the matter to devolve into a "sex trial."

That put the most sensational charges on the back burner for a second trial while requiring prosecutors to first prove complex charges that the ex-mayor used improper influence to rig the city-land deals for Riley.

The dismissal spares the government the expense and effort of a second trial and spares James potential embarrassment regarding salacious details. For example, pre-trial court papers filed in the case showed prosecutors planned to introduce evidence James billed the city for pornographic movies and body lotions while staying at a Miami hotel, an allegation he vehemently denies.

James and his attorney, Alan Zegas, declined to comment after this morning's court hearing.